>Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them.

For whatever reason I've never heard anyone say this before but that's exactly the experience I had after I went and saw James Cameron's "Avatar" (2009) in 3D at the cinema back when it came out. I think I may have had that same feeling after finishing a couple of books as well -- probably after Catch-22 and after Cryptonomicon -- and likely some other movies too but Avatar is the one that I remember having had that feeling after.

Anyway, thanks for making me aware that others have felt the same way about fiction. Of course, I don't believe that any of my feelings are unique in the way that nobody else has felt the same but I hope you get what I mean. Also, when I say that I remember the feeling, I don't mean mean to say that I still keep wishing I could travel to Pandora or interact with the blue catpeople -- the feeling itself faded within a few hours or days or something like that, but the memory of having had that feeling stuck with me :)